


Coriander

by Control_Room, Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Infidelity, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Violence, Universe Alteration, Violence, linework spoilers, minor language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28570095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: Henry had promised himself to never do it again.
Relationships: Joey Drew/Henry Stein
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	Coriander

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Parrot_Assbutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parrot_Assbutt/gifts).



It had been about a week. One whole week home, settling into a pattern again. It should have been fulfilling and calming, but Henry could not keep the tingling terror from seeping through his bones and flesh. There was regret, too, and that made him all the more ashamed. Since Joey came home from his time at sea, Henry made sure to keep far away from the liquor cabinet, even though it beckoned to him like a siren, ferociously tempting. 

Like Alice in wonderland, the door to the bin seemed to glisten and sway with signs reading “drink me!”, singing like a flock of sirens with their beautiful long fingers outstretched to grasp him, “drink me!”, though he knew that it would make him shrink, shrink in his standing. 

Not a drop, he growled to himself, desperate for his willpower not to falter, not a drop, not a drop, not a drop.

So when Shawn brought for the couple a bottle with a red bow on the top along a coriander, passing it over with a mischievous wink and a nudge of the elbow, he found himself split in half: part of him wanted to bless the Irishman, to grasp first him in a hug and then down the bottle with desperate frenzy; the other part wished to break it into infinitesimal splinters against Shawn's head. But Shawn had no idea about the wild desires gripping Henry, and so he accepted the man’s enthusiastic hug in turn, passing the bottle to him after. 

Henry could barely hear Johan thanking the man. His ears were ringing and thundering. A gentle hand touched the side of his face, snapping him from the sensation of falling so fast he felt like he was flying. 

“Henry? Are you alright?” Joey asked him, brows furrowed in concern. It took Henry a moment to properly focus his eyes on Johan, so strong had been his thirst. “Sugar…?”

“Fine, fine,” Henry replied. His fingers curled tighter around the bottle’s neck, the flower petals, stem, and leaves brushing his index knuckles. “I'm just fine, honeybee.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Nothing to worry your beautiful head about. Just a little thirsty, is all.”

Just a little.

Just a little bit.

The sirens emerged from within the dark red liquid and sang louder and louder into his ears as night emerged and his family retired to their own resting areas, urging him to replace his blood with their sweetest nectar.

It was dark, the golden light of his desk illuminating him as he sat with his guiltily earned prize. Joey would not miss it; he never opened the cabinet unless there were guests and it was requested. He never kept track of what was what within, either. He would have never known.

The coriander flowers seemed to glow, yet their falsely innocuous glimmering was dimmed by the light of the bottle, a bit spilling as he uncorked it, and he lapped that drop upon his tongue. It caressed his throat like a poisonous balm, the taste of decay delicious on his skin, and as soon as it reached his lips, he was lost without even knowing it.

Just a drop. 

Just a sip.

Just a swallow.

Just a gulp.

Just a guzzle.

Just a tilt.

Just a little left.

“Henry, darling?”

His eyes opened too fast, torn away from the swirling liquid he hid in his art drawer after hastily and sloppily capping it, and his vision turned to white noise sparks. He turned blindly to the voice: those self same flakes disturbing his sight vanished, and he saw it. Purple eyes shadowed by the poor lighting, it came towards him with a curious gait. 

He inhaled sharply through his nose. Of all the people - of all the things to see, it had to be it. Its sight lit up a suddenly furious spark in him, and he felt anger swell and scream with a flame that burned his liver to coal.

“What might you want, my dear?” he asked with only a hint of acidity, rising with his hands behind his back and a viscous grin growing bitterly across his cheeks. It paused in its steps, confused, worried. But it did not feel those things. Henry’s throat strained with the need to keep his voice low, as Joey was sleeping soundly on the floor above, knocked out with painkillers that Henry normally would have told him to take fewer of. Guilt surged in his gut once more, and he struggled to swallow it. “I don’t need you, I need him.”

“Henry, what-- who are you t-talking about?”

“You should know, you’re made in his image,” Henry’s shoulders sank a bit, but he rose them just as fast. “You’re not Joey.”

“Then… Henry, I am,” there was that sweet touch of innocence. That simple fact infuriated him. How dare it steal his mannerisms?! “Henry, please look at me, you’re f-frightening me… are you alright?”

“I'll look at you, I'll look!” Henry barked, and his hand wrapped its wrist into a painful grip, yanking it down, making it lose its balance. He caught it against his desk, pinning it and snarling. “He asked me if I’m alright. Why do you think I’ll tell you if I didn’t tell him, you shadow?”

“Love-- Henry--” eyes were wide, red in the golden light. Henry’s grip trembled. “Have you been drinking again?”

“Of course I’ve been drinking again,” Henry snorted, all the more angered by the question. “You ask me that every night. He’s always gone and I’m stuck with you, and I want to pretend you’re him. But I can’t pretend when it’s not like him, so I trick my head with whiskey. The answer never changes. Joey might fear the ocean, but I hate it for stealing him from me.”

“Could you-- could you let me up?” it pleaded softly. “Sober up so we can talk?”

He gave a laugh. A single, joyless, spiteful bark.

“We. You say it like ‘we’ is a thing. Well guess what? Just because you wormed your way into my pants doesn’t mean that. Not at all.”

He saw something shift in its eyes. He could not tell what. He did not care what it was. All he wanted was Johan. This was not Johan. It could have never been Johan.

“You are not him,” Henry hissed low and dangerously in its ear, and his clutch tightened even more, raising and shoving down their hands in unison, “You will never be him, you shadow, you bad copy, you subpar imitation, you wretch of my own making-”

“Henry, Henry - please, Henry!” it pleaded as it tried to fight back, far weaker than his drunken grip, “Henry, it's me, it's Johan - Joey! Your Joey! - please, dearest, please stop this, you're scaring me!”

“You're not him!” he roared, slamming it on the table - it cried out in pain, a pain it could not feel. A fist landed on a false face, fake blood like ink spilling from its nose. He grabbed the cloth covering the copied body and ripped it apart, deaf to its pleas as his rage took over, “YOU'RE NOT HIM! Quit pretending you're him! He has scars! SCARS! HE HAS SCARS AND YOU… you… you…”

His brain swayed in his skull as he looked, rags of clothes still held tight in his palm, at the carvings etched in the flesh beneath him under thin quivering hands futilely trying to cover them.

“Oh god.” he only managed to blurt out, staring with wide eyes half sobered from the shock. “Oh god.”

Johan tried to push him off of himself, although he was shaking so hard, in fact, that he was basically unable to remove the man. Another hand came onto Henry’s shoulders and drew him away, the smiling, always smiling face of the copy in his periphery. Johan gawked at it, at his own face peering over Henry's shoulder. 

“What… what is that?” he asked with a breath. “Henry, what the hell… oh, Henry….”

Henry looked to the pavement, vertigo making his legs quake. He swallowed air with difficulty. 

“Joey, Johan, I’m so f-fuckin’ sorry,” he choked, the copy looming behind him. “Oh, what have I done….”

He reached out for Johan, trying to hold him, tilting his head as best as he could to angle himself for a kiss to get rid of all the blood on his lip, to cover his body with his own, to shield him and apologize, desperate, tears in his eyes. Joey’s words were hard to hear, so he leaned in to taste and feel them instead. As soon as their lips met, however, Joey resisted him gently, and pushed his arms down and away from himself. Henry felt swift, almost liquid hands pull him back. He looked back down, chest shuddering with silent thundering sobs.

“How much have you drunk?” Johan's voice reached him again. Red eyes trailed to the dark bottle sticking out of the desk, shaking fingers deftly plucking it to examine the level: the alcohol swayed weakly, perilously close to the bottom of the bottle. At a glance he concluded there was, at most, a small cup left. “Henry- I- what-”

Henry’s eyes settled on the coriander flowers behind Johan. 

“This isn't okay.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry,” he hiccuped. “What can - what can I do to make it up to you?”

“We can discuss that in the morning. When you’re sober.” Johan admonished, shivering slightly-- whether from the cold or ebbing fear, he could not tell, and chose it to be cold. “I should’ve seen this c-coming… I guessed, when I saw you constantly looking at the alcohol cabinet, and I put a lock on it--”

“You did?” Henry asked, stupefied. Johan blinked, and smiled wryly. 

“Seems as though some p-precautions are for naught,” he murmured, very softly, looking away with a bitter flicker in his eye. Henry tried to kiss away that sadness, and he was pulled back by deathly cold hands once more. They made him wince for the chill. “I thought you might go back to it. I wish I had s-someone keep a better eye on you.”

“I'm sorry,” Henry murmured, stripping his lab coat and giving it to the taller man to cover himself, buttoning it for him, taking his hands and kissing each knuckle. “I'm so sorry, Johan, I… it won't… it won't happen again, I, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I’ll do anything….”

“Hush, hush,” slender dark fingers eased his broad hands down, “Let's… let’s go to sleep now. You need to sober up, first and foremost.”

Joey ignored the stare of the doppleganger, walking up the stairs to hold Henry on the edge of their bed, silent. His jaw was firmly stiff, the bone clenching and shifting.

Henry cried and cried, which was to be expected. Joey remembered how Henry would cry when he would drink- before (or during) a stressful exam, when anything having to do with Eleanor came up, or whenever there was just a party with alcohol to be had. It made Johan exceptionally wary of the vaporous liquid, though perhaps too late for him as well. But once Henry had caught him with a syringe and a bottle, he drew the line, and forced Joey to get better with him; no drinking for either, and no substances for Johan. It worked, to a degree, each doing half of the measure with frequent relapsing on Johan’s end and caches of liquor on Henry’s. There had been some sloppy missteps on both sides, but it worked on the gestalt. 

Or, so Johan thought. 

His head lowered to see Henry’s sobbing now just little hiccups, snuggling against Joey’s chest and pressing his head to his heartbeat. Johan’s gaze moved to the scraps that were his shirt, the pin’s glinting besmirched by a bit of blood atop it.

He pulled Henry onto the bed, and tucked him in, settling himself on the side. Henry looked at him.

His heart ached to see Joey looking so empty-- so torn. There was just the slightest pull of his brow that showed the turmoil within. Henry stayed on his side of the bed, for fear of disturbing the man, and pretended to have his eyes closed when Joey looked at him.

Joey’s entire being was sad. 

His face, his position in the bed, his eyes, everything. Henry could not keep in a whine of distress, and reached to take Johan’s hand. Joey looked at the connection, entire face tight; jaw, brow, eyes, even nose. 

Henry could not say he was shocked when Joey burst into tears, but it threw him off nonetheless. He retreated his hand quickly, almost smelling the foul odor of burning flesh emanating from their hands where he had dared touching.

“N-no, no, come back,” Johan begged weakly, shuddering nonstop. His thin fingers inched closer in hesitation, and Henry wasted no time in taking them once more. Joey’s crying eased, and he pulled Henry’s hand to his heart, curling up and weeping quietly, lips twitching erratically as he mumbled, over and over, “I’m s-sorry I didn’t p-protect you, m’sorry--”

“Joey, I’m the one who should be sorry,” Henry reminded him, turning to put his hand on Joey’s shoulder, stroking the bone with his thumb. “I should’ve dealt with my problem better.”

“I should have h-helped you,” Johan repeated, “I should have helped, I s-should have protected y-you, a-and I didn't, I f, I failed you, I'm sorry, I'm s-sorry, I-”

“None of that,” Henry firmly stated, his hand moving to the side of Joey’s face. “None of that. I’m a grown ass man who can handle himself, and it’s not your fault that I fucked up. Big time. You hear? It's not your job to keep me in check, it's not your responsibility. None of this is your fault. I fucked up.” 

Johan nodded, and it was then Henry realized he was moving closer with every word, able to feel his breath on his face. He wanted to kiss him, to relieve his worry, but he knew that was not an option at the time, and instead pressed a small kiss upon his brow, and tucked Johan’s head under his chin, wrapping him in his arms. 

“None of this is your fault,” he repeated in a whisper.

Johan nodded weakly again. His ink blue hair scratched against Henry's beard.

“None of this.”

His eyes felt heavy. Both his head and stomach ached much like twin turbulent seas. He held Joey a little tighter in his arms.

Henry did not notice falling asleep or waking. 

He realized he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee and a list of restrictions before him. Willy had offered Airgead to watch over Henry. The dog smiled up at him.

“No more drinking.” Joey restated. Henry nodded.

“And the copy?”

“Remolded, perhaps?”

“Good idea.”

“We’ll see.”

Henry vowed to stay faithful, then-- to his words and his family.


End file.
